In telecommunications networks, e.g., as specified by 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), it is known to provide application services to users of the telecommunications network. Examples of such application services are Internet Protocol (IP) based multimedia services. One possibility is to provide the application services by application servers in a core network of the telecommunications network. A further possibility is to add an application service (AS) platform at nodes of an access network of the telecommunications network. Examples of such access nodes are nodes of a Radio Access Network (RAN) of a cellular mobile telecommunications system, such as a Radio Network Controller (RNC) of the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) or a base station of the evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN) according to 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution), referred to as E-UTRAN Node B (eNB). Such AS platform may be implemented as an open computing platform which can host applications provided by the operator of the telecommunications network and also applications provided by other parties.
In a typical scenario, a user equipment (UE) connected to the telecommunications network via a given access node would access an application running on the AS platform at this access node. The AS platform could then expose useful information available at the access node to the application, e.g., information on radio channel characteristics, UE identifiers, or the like.
However, due to mobility of the UE it may also occur that the access node which is used by the UE for connecting to the telecommunications network changes, resulting in a scenario in which the application is running on the AS platform at one access node, but the UE uses another access node for connecting to the telecommunications network. It may then no longer be possible to provide the AS platform with useful information available at the access node used for connecting to the telecommunications network.
Accordingly, there is a need for techniques which allow for efficiently addressing such scenarios and providing an AS platform at an access node with valuable information even if another access node is used for connecting to the telecommunications network.